Alcester Union & Hudsonite Online

PIERRE – The South Dakota Supreme Court last Friday ruled that the cold case murder conviction against James Strahl of Dakota City, NE be returned to Union County court. Strahl was sentenced last year to life in prison by a Union County jury for the murder of William O’Hare of rural Beresford in 1998.

The high court ruled that the testimony of prison informant Aloysius Black Crow during the Strahl trial should not be allowed after Black Crow admitted earlier this year to lying about an alleged murder confession in an unrelated case.

Strahl’s lawyer has asked for a retrial.

Black Crow was one of the key witnesses in the Strahl murder trial. He had been placed as a cellmate with Strahl, the lead suspect in the O’Hare murder investigation, to try to gather information on the case. Black Crow later told authorities that Strahl confessed to O’Hare’s murder and charges were filed.

Strahl was later found guilty of first-degree murder and grand theft, and sentenced to life in prison.

Cold case investigators then had Black Crow transferred to the South Dakota Penitentiary to try to gather information from David Lykken, a suspect in the disappearance of two Vermillion teenagers in 1971. Lykken was a teenager living on a farm southeast of Beresford at the time.

In March 2006 Black Crow turned over a tape recording to authorities that he said contained Lykken’s confession to the murder of Vermillion teenagers Pamela Jackson and Sherri Miller in May, 1971.

Lykken was subsequently charged with several counts, including two counts of murder, and a trial date was set for March 18 in Union County.

During pretrial hearings Lykken’s attorney, Mike Butler of Sioux Falls, asked the court to throw out the alleged taped confession, saying the State couldn’t prove that it was Lykken’s voice on the recordings. The court overruled and said the recording would be allowed at the trial.

After further questioning, Black Crow told law enforcement authorities that he and another inmate had created the recording in the prison library based upon what Lykken had told him, but admitted that it was not Lykken’s voice on the tape.

The State subsequently dropped the charges against Lykken. State’s Attorney Larry Long said he did not know if charges would be re-filed in the case. He also said Black Crow would likely face perjury charges for lying to investigators.

Lykken is currently serving a 227-year prison sentence for a 1990 rape and kidnapping conviction out of Clay County.

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